Hand.

Hello and welcome to.

horizonte a show that takes a look at current issues through a Hispanic lens?

I'm your host, Katherine Anaya.

Community health centers are nonprofit organizations that provide a wide range of services, often in underserved communities.

Right now, these lifelines are facing a downturn in federal funding, including funding that expired in September and cuts to Medicaid that are slated for 2027.

How will health centers that provide medical services to vulnerable populations continue to operate under looming health care cuts?

Joining me to talk more about the importance of federally qualified health care centers is Pedro Corn, CEO of Adelante Health Care.

Nice to have you here.

Oh.

Thank you.

Definitely an honor to be here.

Appreciate you.

These centers, they operate on such limited budgets already.

How would these proposed health care budget cuts impact the services?

The critical services that you are offering your patients every single day?

That's a great question.

And you know, in 2027, when these cuts take effect, they definitely will have an impact in our communities, our health centers.

A reduction in service, our ability to provide care at the level that we currently do.

Most likely we will see hospitals begin to shut their doors or close, and some of the rural areas.

And so it is truly a detriment that that, will happen to our communities as these reductions in services, occur.

Well, you've already been feeling some of these cuts.

And then if you're looking ahead to 2027, how are you preparing to make some of these very difficult decisions?

You know, one of the things that we're really looking at is innovation in technology.

And how can we utilize some of the resources that we have out there currently, in our availability to to really have an impact and preparing for what may be inevitable.

And that's a reduction in staff or reduction in what, our ability to provide the care that at the level that we're currently providing.

So it is a lot of work that's going into, how are we going to mitigate these efforts?

How are we going to get more folks to come out and see us, more individual that are on Medicaid, commercial plans, individual plans, uninsured individuals, you know, so it is really going to be a quite the task to engage our community.

Well, you've been providing these very valuable services to the community for a very long time.

The story of Adelante is remarkable.

I want to talk about that for just a moment.

It started in a small trailer in El Mirage more than 45 years ago.

Built on a mission of providing inclusive, high quality care for everyone.

How would you describe other Lanza's growth since those early days, and and how that mission has evolved in the through the years?

Absolutely.

And such a great question.

And, you know, just about the history of the land, the health care.

We were founded in 1979, as you mentioned, and and it was truly about providing care to the farm working communities that were in El Mirage and their surrounding areas during that time.

That was our early beginnings with one volunteer doc that participated and provided that care to the community.

And today we have over 800 employees at other health care.

We serve 89,000, you know, unique patients, 225,000 women and children in our work program.

It has been a tremendous growth over the last 45 years.

And today, more than half of these patients, they are Hispanic or Latino and more than half for women.

Can you paint for us a picture of the kinds of services that Adelante provides and who who you're serving on the front lines?

Yes.

So we serve everyone that comes through our doors at other mental health care.

We have, you know, individuals, you know, that are that as you mentioned, the majority of our patients are women, Latinos.

Over 70% and over 77% of our patients are women.

We deliver 150 babies a month with our organs.

We have a very robust pediatric team, family medicine, internal medicine.

We also have a dentist team as well.

So we provide dental care to our community as well as behavioral health.

Yes.

Let's talk about that for just a moment, because you're seeing more than 700 behavioral health patients a day, which is really extraordinary.

Did that demand spike after the pandemic?

And what does that tell us about where our community is when it comes to embracing and understanding the importance of mental health care?

Yes.

And that demand did come during the pandemic.

In the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, we saw maybe 5 to 10 patients a day in behavioral health.

The pandemic, I believe, opened the doors and open the eyes of the of our community, our nation.

What we saw was everyone was experiencing isolation, you know, having to be in enclosed in their house and so forth.

And, most a lot of folks were experiencing depression and anxiety.

And so it it really opened the doors.

And as a result, we saw more folks that were willing to come in and and receive care.

And that's why we were serving 700 patients a day now and continuing to to increase, you know, what that looks like in terms of service delivery.

It's just incredible.

And you're able to meet people where they are.

And a majority of those visits are tele visits, right?

Yes.

Over 30% of our visits, our telehealth visits on the behavioral health side, which is incredible because, that means that we are able to meet our patients where they're at.

And, and we're able to do it in a comprehensive way, with therapists that are not only here in the state of Arizona, but across the country.

You also have this fantastic, medical education program, and that's helping train the next generation of health care providers.

We've talked on autism there before about the lack of Latino health care professionals.

So what you're doing is very instrumental into changing those numbers.

Tell me about how the program works and and what kind of experience, these participants gain that many times, they're often bringing back to the community where they're learning from.

Absolutely.

We have a great partnership with universities like at Steel University as well as Midwestern University.

We have the rotations for their fourth year, third year docs.

And, you know, it's, when we look at Midwestern, they're a dental team that comes in every five weeks.

They train with our providers, they get the experience and most likely, you know, have that opportunity to come back if it's not our organization to other, underserved, community health centers as well.

It's incredible.

And you touched on, the farm worker population, which was obviously, who Adelante started serving in the beginning.

How do you support these workers now, and what kind of care and services are you able to give them access to?

You know, we still continue to serve our farm working communities.

We have over 3700 farmworkers within within our Atlanta.

I wanted to share something in regards to because when I hear folks talk about farm workers, they make assumptions.

And I wanted to share my wife's story.

My wife is a was a farm worker.

Her families were farm worker, migrant farm workers.

And they would travel from Texas to Michigan to pick strawberries.

And it was there in Michigan where she found a beautiful different city, different state, and attended Michigan University and now is a professional and in the behavioral health world as well.

But there's also a US citizen, right?

And so many of our community members choose their profession.

And, in farm work and migrant farm working was just their profession at that time.

And so it is critical for us to, to, really focus on the needs of our farm working communities.

We work with all of them, Hickman Farms, Maitri Farms, and we're there to provide care every single day.

It's all about community based care, indeed.

Looking ahead, what will it, take to make sure that every person in Arizona and we're talking about, regardless of income, background or zip code, what's it going to take to make sure that every Arizonan has access to the health care?

Not only that they need, but that they deserve?

Yeah, I would say that when all of us get on the same page to lead a future in which accessible, high quality care sets the standard for all.

I love that.

And one of the things I think that stands out when it comes to Adelante health care is the community connection, which is really a priority for how you create that relationship with the community.

Can you tell me about some of the important, causes and practices that you put into place to make sure that that relationship is solid?

Absolutely.

We are at other length of health care are at and more than 40 events every single month.

One that we have coming up here is a partnership with the Ada, the Arizona Diabetes Association, next Friday.

And it's going to be at the Crock center.

And and that community event is about bringing awareness to our community around around the chronic disease in diabetes and how it impacts our community members.

So we're looking forward to having over 300 individuals from the community and, business leaders and so that they can learn more about how they can have an impact with their employees and their communities as well.

So when you look ahead to, the challenges, not only that you've dealt with, but that you will have to deal with in the future, and the lives that have been touched already by Adelante.

What keeps you hopeful about the future of community based health care?

What keeps me hopeful every single day is the opportunity for us to get out there and serve.

And when I go out there and I see our staff and what they do every single day and the passion that they bring, the commitment, it is truly inspiring.

And I know that we are in a good place when us as community health centers have employees and have people that care as much as they do.

What is the first step if somebody needs to access health care through Adelante?

Well, they can definitely, go to our website, Arizona Atlanta health care.com, or call any of our offices and we be happy to serve you.

Yeah.

You have wonderful, beautiful large campuses.

Yes, we do.

Okay.

It's great to see you.

Thank you so much for joining me.

I know, thank you again.

Yeah.

And that's our show for now for Autism and Arizona PBS.

I'm Catherine Anaya.